Don't Let Michelangelo Imposter's Mar-A-Lago Performance Deny TMNT: Mutant Mayhem Its Rightful Oscar
Faux ninja, faux ninja, NO!
Less than 24 hours into 2024, controversy is already heating up ahead of the Academy Awards. As part of Donald Trump's annual New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, washed-up '90s nostalgia entertainer Robert Matthew Van Winkle aka Vanilla Ice was one of the performing guests of honor. The resort owner is currently facing 13 felony counts, so it only makes sense that the headliner is a one-hit-wonder who did community service for stealing furniture, bicycles, and a pool heater from a vacant home. Nothing says success story like committing residential burglary and grand theft! As was reported by The Daily Beast, Van Winkle's performance was a huge hit with folks who clap on 1 and 3 and think Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce is too spicy, although Trump himself did not lift his arms when Van Winkle encouraged the audience to, "Get your hands in the air, it's a new year!" There's always 2025, Ice.
Van Winkle playing his hit single "Ice, Ice Baby" — only made possible by sampling David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure" and a flow so slow that even elementary schoolers can keep up — was a given, but his setlist also included "Ninja Rap," the song he provided for 1991's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze." The 56-year-old former 10th place finisher on "Dancing with the Stars" didn't perform alone, inviting on stage one of the iconic heroes in a half-shell, everyone's favorite party dude, Michelangelo. At least, that's what Vanilla Ice wants us to believe.
Call me a whistleblower if you must, but the Michelangelo who performed at Mar-a-Lago was nothing more than an imposter at best, and an unleashed sleeper cell attempting to discredit "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" ahead of ballot voting before the Academy Awards at worst.
Teenage Mutant Ninja IDENTITY THEFT Turtle
We here at /Film declared "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" one of the best animated releases of 2023, and this writer even went on record to state that the film "was my personal #1 animated feature of the year, and it has nothing to do with the fact my last name is already four-fifths of the name of my favorite turtle teen." I have always felt a kinship with the orange hachimaki-donning turtle bro, because I too am naturally gifted but prefer to have a good time, have an immature sense of humor, and have an affinity for eating pizza and being radical as hell. The similar surname was already a fun coincidence, but "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" establishing Michelangelo as someone who gets excited to audition for the high school improv team only solidified that he's my turtle soul mate.
Some might say this makes me a biased journalist in thinking this Mar-a-Lago Michelangelo is an imposter, but I say this makes me the perfect investigator. I have a personal connection to this case, which means I'm going to do anything and everything to clear his good name. For one thing, Michelangelo proved in the prom scene of "Mutant Mayhem" that he is an exponentially better dancer than whatever C.H.U.D. Van Winkle hired, but the real Michelangelo is a marginalized mutant living in the sewers and attending a public high school in New York City, which means he's avoiding anywhere Rudy Giuliani would hang out. Mikey would rather hang out with someone like Mondo Gecko, who while a little bit of an airhead, is clearly a socialist (peep the peace sign shirt and Kandi jewelry). They say you are the company you keep, and the only conservatives in the realm of "TMNT" are their haters.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were thought to be liberal propaganda
In a 1991 column at the Chicago Tribune (hidden behind a paywall but transcribed by The Daily Beast), columnist Stephen Chapman wrote, "The muscle-bound little reptiles, I regret to inform you, have a political agenda, which is the same color as their shells: green. Not content with entertaining children, the Turtles want to indoctrinate them in environmentalist dogma and put them to work spreading it." That's right, folks. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are "woke" liberals who believe in things like climate change!
There was even a TMNT-themed book called "ABC's for a Better Planet" where the turtles encouraged children to get active in their communities and write to their government leaders about prioritizing environmentally friendly alternatives. This political unrest wasn't exclusive to Republicans in America, either. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the conservative right in England tried to cancel the Turtles. Like Michelangelo, someone at the center of this much political turmoil and controversy would never want to hang out with those who wish to harm him.
"TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" is not just one of the best TMNT movies ever made, it's also a story about looking for acceptance in a world that demonizes you for being different, recognizing that communal collaboration is always more powerful than individualism, and how embracing your unique traits in the face of conformity can become the ultimate superpower. These tenants are the antithesis of everything the human embodiments of unseasoned chicken thighs who hang around Mar-a-Lago stand for. Michelangelo would never take part in such an event, and it's disgusting that Vanilla Ice hired an impersonator to taint his reputation.
Who is trying to sully the Turtles?
Is this imposter part of a bigger conspiracy to sully the good name of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or the result of Republicans once again not actually understanding the political messaging of media, like how the alt-right has co-opted the visuals of Marvel's Punisher? Or perhaps this is just the continued sour grapes of Vanilla Ice himself, who has very obviously felt some kind of way about how the music in TMNT films has only gotten better with every installment following "The Secret of the Ooze." In 2014, Van Winkle ran his mouth about "Shell Shocked," the track from Wiz Khalifa, Juicy J, and Ty Dolla $ign for Jonathan Liebesman's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie despite the fact he couldn't come up with a bar like "All my brothers tryna get some cheddar / We all want our cut like the shredder / Me and my bros come together for the dough / Bought the orange Lamborghini, call it Michelangelo" in his wildest dreams.
As for "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem?" Why, that film has, for my money, the best music of 2023. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score absolutely RIPS and the needle drops of Blackstreet, A Tribe Called Quest, Naughty By Nature, MF Doom, Busta Rhymes, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Gravediggaz, DMX, and 4 Non Blondes kicks ass. Vanilla Ice should be thankful his track got a three-second cameo in the film.
This is all to say, if there are any Academy voters out there reading this: when casting your ballot for Best Animated Feature, you'd be wise to consider "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem." Someone out there is clearly threatened by their power, a surefire sign that they're doing something right.
"TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" is available to stream on Paramount+ and on physical release.